The composite responsible for the flashy coloring is nacre, or mother-of-pearl.
“An amorphous precursor to nacre formation has been suspected to exist, but has never been successfully identified, despite extensive attempts” write a team of researchers recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Now, those researchers have gained some insight into how this biomineral is formed at the atomic and nanometer scale, presenting the first observations of amorphous calcium carbonate to nacre formation.
Amorphous calcium carbonate minerals have been identified as the first phases of biominerals deposited by living organisms. “Sea urchin embryonic spicules were the first biominerals in which an amorphous precursor was discovered, followed by sea urchin spines and teeth, bone, tooth enamel and a variety of other biominerals,” the researchers write.
“People have been trying to understand if nacre had an amorphous calcium carbonate precursor for a long time,” said Pupa Gilbert, a physics professor at Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on biomineral formation.
The team used the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Light Source, located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to observe the chemical transformation taking place when amorphous calcium carbonate transforms into aragonite, a mineral that manifests as nacre.
The researchers observed the transformation in shells from red abalone (Haliotis rufescens).
According to Gilbert, the hydrated amorphous material quickly dehydrates and crystalizes into aragonite. The process involves calcium atoms, which are initially bound to six oxygen atoms, binding to nine oxygen atoms when crystallized.
“It is how the atoms are arranged that matters. The actual chemical composition of calcium carbonate does not change. Only the structure does upon crystallization,” she said, noting it was an unsuspected find.
“Everyone expected to find amorphous precursor material that already had the symmetry of the final crystal at the atomic scale, lacking only the long-range order of crystals. We stand corrected,” she said.
The researchers captured details of the process down to 20 nm in size.
An underlying brickwork structure makes nacre both tough and durable. According to Gilbert, understanding the natural process behind nacre formation may eventually prove useful for industrial applications.
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